Balakot was the site of a great battle in the year 1831, when the Sikh Army defeated Syed Ahmed Barelvi and other Mujahideens

Barelvi hailed from Rae Bareilly UP, and was an Islamic revivalist who took on the Sikh Empire

Barelvi can be viewed as the proto-Jihadist in some ways....

And Balakot is where he met his end while fighting the Sikhs.

Within Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balakot is located in the Mansehra district - which interestingly is named after Man Singh, the army general of Akbar.

The city with a population of 30K people was totally destroyed in 2005 when the Kashmir earthquake happened

Not sure how much of the city has been reconstructed

Here's what the historian Ayesha Jalal has to say about Balakot

In her book "Partisans of Allah" she says

"Balakot is in many ways the epicentre of jihad in South Asia"

(Contd..)

"Blanketed by green, terraced fields and thick, dark forests, this beautiful town is situated about eighteen miles from the city of Mansehra in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan."

"Situated on the banks of the river Kunhar, it serves as a gateway to the picturesque Kaghan Valley, which is bounded on the east and the south by Kashmir. It is also a point of entry into the history of jihad, struggle in the way of Allah, in the subcontinent"

Here's more -

"Balakot’s association with the idea and practice of jihad in South Asia was reinforced in the 1990s, when militant groups set up training camps in its environs to prepare for their campaign against the Indian security forces stationed in.. Kashmir."

"For these militants, Sayyid Ahmad and Shah Ismail are great heroes, whose jihad their admirers wish to emulate, to redress what they perceive as current injustices”

Related threads

Almost everyone has given his/her take. Even though late, let me try to distill my thoughts on what has happened in #Balakot and thereafter. Let me begin by saying that today's actions on the LoC by PAF doesn't restore deterrence for Pakistan. 1/n

What happened in #Balakot and what happened at LoC today are qualitatively very different. The former was an airstrike on a terror camp inside KPK. The latter was an action right across LoC resulting in no damage. Luckily for Gen Bajwa, the Mig21 fell on Pakistani side, 2/n

and the PAF plane that went down also fell on Pakistani side. Now Gen Bajwa has an IAF pilot to parade around. This repairs his domestic image that had been jolted by the IAF airstrikes. On the other hand, the optics are not good for Modi. 3/n

The first Airstrike by US against "terrorists" in Afghanistan after 9/11 began on 7 Oct 2001. Nearly 2 decades later, US is now talking to "Taliban" for a "deal". This is how effective airstrikes are against "terrorists". 1/n

WRT India's airstrike on "terrorist camps" in Pakistan, how degrading would that be to the terror networks in reality? Very little. You can't destroy much that cannot be replaced quickly. Would that work as a deterrent? No. 2/n

India's airstrike against terrorist camps in Pakistan is more for optics and electoral posturing by Modi-Doval & company. Like the last "surgical Strike" could not prevent more terror attacks on India, neither would this. 3/n

Follow-up tweet clarifies things a bit. We can litigate details later, but big picture right now per ISPR is IAF fighters crossed LoC in the early morning—before sunrise—and released some payload that Pakistan is saying hit nothing important in particular.